Barrels

T

Tim Singleton

Member
To guys that are winning and consistently placing at the top. Have won a lot
How many barrels on average do you sort through before you find one to take to a match that you feel will win?
 
i hate to say this............

but i have been shooting since 1999. of course not going to matches like others in that time period (61 total matches over that time). i have had a total of maybe 10-12 barrels and i have not been blessed with a hummer ever. i had one barrel that i won the shamrock with in 2003. never changed the load the entire weekend. wayne campbell told me to put that barrel away and save it for big matches. of course that made me feel good. went to the super shoot that year thinking me and wilbur are going to leave ohio with alot of money.......... well............. lets just say i came home with less money :) sold that gun to brady and he never got it to shoot like it did that one match. got the gun i have now in 2004. its been more consistent more top 10s and with some of those barrels i have won a couple of yardages and aggs, but no more 2 or 4 guns. its very heart breaking when you love something that cost so much money and cant seem to get over the hump. but i will say this if i won the lottery i will buy about 100 barrels and maybe my luck will change :) and sorry i know i didnt answer your question but i had to vent my anger :) ........... also i know you asked for "winners" to respond....... no im not a winner just a shooter who wants to be a winner. i do enjoy going to matches but, but, but i rather win than anything else :) to much money to just say "yea i have fun and glad to finish in the middle"
 
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That's a good question...

I've had a couple of those barrels you're asking about but never had the cash to always have one. I can't answer your question but hope that somebody will.

There's a prelim that a lot folks don't seem to understand - that you have to have a good rifle to find a good barrel. If you find a good barrel, that qualifies the rifle - let it alone starting right there. There's no telling how many good barrels that have been installed on rifles that have the unknown "flaw".

BTW - Nobody understands exactly what happened to the barrel Scott talks about. It was like some kind of benchrest God decided it was Scott's turn or something....
 
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Im not so sure you have to buy a pallet of barrels to win in this game. I chambered just for myself 4 barrels last spring. Every one of those barrels is or was competitive. I have new blanks on my shelf that I wont chamber simply because there is no need to.
my best shooting pard, Jim Hart competed with just 2 barrels last year I chambered here. He kicked everyone's but the last shoot we had in st Louis this year, and did dam well the shoot before that. All with the same two barrels. I just don't see a need in buying more than you really need. just my thinking on the subject. Lee
 
skeetlee said:
Im not so sure you have to buy a pallet of barrels to win in this game. I chambered just for myself 4 barrels last spring. Every one of those barrels is or was competitive. I have new blanks on my shelf that I wont chamber simply because there is no need to.
my best shooting pard, Jim Hart competed with just 2 barrels last year I chambered here. He kicked everyone's but the last shoot we had in st Louis this year, and did dam well the shoot before that. All with the same two barrels. I just don't see a need in buying more than you really need. just my thinking on the subject. Lee
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That's good info. You started out with 4 barrels your partner started with 2. Just checking what guys are doing. If I have one new barrel chambered and go from there maybe it's a winner maybe not.
Just trying to see on average what guys that are successful are doing.
 
I'm with Wilbur, it seems that some rifles will shoot with any barrel you put on it, if you get a rifle like that you better keep it. I've learned that the hard way. I got out of group shooting sometime back and the last year I bought several barrels and couldn't get any of them to shoot like I thought they should, since then I've put a gun or two together and started trying some of those old barrels and found that there was one that I wouldn't be afraid to carry to the super shoot and a couple of the others that I've shot some UBR with and faired pretty well. It's not always the barrel.
 
foundation

Super Barrels are necessary to shoot great. However, the foundation, (action, stock, trigger, scope) is necessary for the for the barrel to give you what it will. When I could see, and even after, I spent way too much (based on my limited budget) searching for another "hummer". If you do not have the foundation - do not forget the bullets- you are less likely to find "The Barrel". just my two cents worth from a shooter who has owned a "hummer" was an above average shooter before vision problems.
 
I certainly agree with Scotty in that some rifles just shoot better than others as do barrels. But when you see the same names near the top of the list so frequently you have to consider that a great deal has to do with the shooter. It was pointed out to me a while back that most of those names have ranges either nearby or in their backyard and I'm sure that many shoot daily or close to that. I recall Jackie Schmidt once speculating that a high % of the rifles that go to the line are capable of winning. You can't win with faulty equipment but, I think the shooter has more to do with winning than the barrel.

Rick
 
Hummer

I spent an evening with Scott and Tony this year at SS, I asked Tony " Mr Boyer how will I know if I have a hummer barrel?" He replied " don't worry, we'll know"
Bill
 
I'm not so much trying to look for a hummer so to speak. Just wondering what some guys normal process is at the start of the season. I know it has a lot to do with available funds. Just curious if it is common practice to test several barrels and sort them out
 
Tim,
I think that the barrels that win are on guns that are winners, by that I mean the action is right the scope is right the stock is right and so on and so on not leaving out the shooter, Wilbur once made the statement that if you see someone that consistently wins and for some reason wants to sell his gun you better buy it and I agree. I had a rifle once that shot very well, it just needed someone to steer it, I sold that rifle to Billy Stevens and he won the super shoot with it. (Boy did I kick myself in the a$$).
Rick,
I agree and disagree, A good gun with a hummer barrel doesn't need a lot of steering but a great shooter that has that rifle can make special thing happen!
 
also.........

you can look at it this way. give the best shooter in the world a rifle that can only agg a 0.300............. and guess what he is going to shoot. no one can make a bad barrel a winner. but a great barrel can make ALOT of people look like they know what they are doing. if that wasnt the case then the top shooters wouldnt need to buy so many barrels. if we think a great shooter can make a bad gun shoot. the next match you go too swap rifles with one of the top guys that has a true enough great rifle and give him a so-so rifle...... and i bet you will bet him/her........ and if we still dont believe this just read Boyer's book about the 30 barrels he labeled as junk at one time (he said not one probably had more than 200 rounds on it) and took them back out to try them. he said not a one was worth taking to a match.... so if he cant get a barrel to magically shoot then no one can.
 
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scott mims said:
you can look at it this way. give the best shooter in the world a rifle that can only agg a 0.300............. and guess what he is going to shoot. no one can make a bad barrel a winner. but a great barrel can make ALOT of people look like they know what they are doing. if that wasnt the case then the top shooters wouldnt need to buy so many barrels. if we think a great shooter can make a bad gun shoot. the next match you go too swap rifles with one of the top guys that has a true enough great rifle and give him a so-so rifle...... and i bet you will bet him/her........ and if we still dont believe this just read Boyer's book about the 30 barrels he labeled as junk at one time (he said not one probably had more than 200 rounds on it) and took them back out to try them. he said not a one was worth taking to a match.... so if he cant get a barrel to magically shoot then no one can.
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Scott, A few ywars ago when I first started score shooting if I finished mid pack I went home happy. But, there was one guy in particular, if his car was in the parking lot, I knew I wouldn't finish last. Then he bought a great rifle from a guy who was getting out of the game. All of a sudden he was one of the guys competing for first place every match. And where was I? still mid pack at best :( Great rifles can make some pretty damn good shooters.

Rick
 
yep..... things come full circle. to stay on top we better be ready to spend money to buy the best barrels/rifles we can because as soon as that GREAT barrel is shot out guess where we are then.... back in the middle of the pack. ive seen it happen like you said over the years. someone gets ahold of a great rifle/barrel and we might as well just enjoy the show it looks like they could just point it down range the bullets are going to go in the same hole.BUT if they dont stay on top of their equipment and update it when it needs it... well they are back down the list with me :)

i will say this too when i say i finish in the top 10 or mid pack it might look good while im typing it but when only 20 to 25 people show up to a match it doesnt look so good anymore :)
 
Tim Singleton said:
To guys that are winning and consistently placing at the top. Have won a lot
How many barrels on average do you sort through before you find one to take to a match that you feel will win?
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Not sure that I qualify according to the criteria you set, and I shoot score with a 30BR, so what I do may be completely irrelevant. For what it's worth, I expect a barrel to last at least 3000 rounds. After three seasons of 5-10 matches per year, it will hopefully be several more years before accuracy falls off to the point that a barrel change is necessary. Of two new rifles, one shot fairly well immediately, but improved a bit with tuning. The other (with the homemade stock) is still a work in progress, but has shot a few outstanding groups. Neither barrel seems bad enough to give up on yet.

So, bottom line, one barrel every 5-10 years? This may be an outlier in your data!:D
 
Tim,

The answer is as many as it takes! But maybe not as many as you might think. This year I had seven barrels chambered and tested six. I'd say Billy did about the same.

The top guys are always looking for barrels that will compete at the big matches (SS, IBS, NBRSA Nationals). So if you find one pretty quick, it stays on the rifle and it goes into the safe. Then onto the next barrel/gun combination. Barrels that don't make the cut for the big matches are used for practice and regional matches.

I normally keep three good rifles on hand. If one of them ends the season with a really good barrel, I'll leave it on the gun so I'll have something to start the season with, in case I can't find something else. I'll practice with the others.

Some thoughts about matches; great barrels and guns besides...

If you want to win matches and stay towards the top, you've got to pay your dues. Occasionally a brand new shooter gets ahold of a killer barrel. They might win a yardage or grand, but it's unusual for an overall shoot.

As for the dues I'm talking about: the guys consistently at the top share some common traits. They have great equipment, they practice a lot, they practice in bad conditions, they know their powder, they know how to tune, they know how to keep their equipment in tune, they know how to hold off in conditions, they get to the match early, they test conditions, they track load changes, and during the match, they minimize their mistakes. They also have the focus and will to win.

Then, with all that said between the top guys, if you win a big match or are just shooting well, they will all say that SOB has a hummer barrel or secret bullets! That's just the way it is!

Bart
 
I think this whole hummer barrel thing is a friggerment of our imagination!!! Its all smoke and mirrors. CCBW can tell you that when Paul Wolf had that great hummer it was just a friggerment.

Pay attention to what Bart wrote about paying dues-practice and learning to tune. But, I think Bart will tell you sometimes your tuning methodology just don't work. If it worked all the time everyone would win all the time.

You can buy the best equipment, buy a pile of barrels each season, but you still can't buy a win! Bart, Billy, Tony, Larry and the whole bunch will tell you there is no substitute for practice with the same equipment, barrel brand/type, bullet brand/type, powder same lot, etc.

My problem is I find that boring and so I constantly change something, cartridge (22 PPC, 22 Waldog, 6PPC, 6-40 Dune, 6-40 Tyger) , barrel configuration (I've shot 3-groove barrels, 4-groove barrels, 5-groove barrels, yes 5, 6-groove barrels and one 8 groove barrel. Twists of 13, 13.5, 13.75, 14, 14.3, 15 and gainers) They were all fun but none of them were magic. The barrels I shoot WILL shoot if I just leave them alone!!! But I can't!!!

So, simple answer Tim, if you are wildly driven to win, keep at it and someday you will.
 
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